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Cape Town

city in the Western Cape, South Africa

18 dated entries naming Cape Town, drawn from 18 separate years between 1652 CE and 2014 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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17th century

  • 1652April 6 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope in modern-day South Africa, thus founding Cape Town.source
  • 1694April 2 – Sheikh Yusuf, exiled by the administrators of the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), arrives at the Dutch Cape Colony on the ship De Voetboog, at what later becomes Cape Town, South Africa, along with two wives, two concubines and twelve children. Resettled by the colonial government at a farm in Zandvliet, the Sheikh introduces Islam to South Africa.source

18th century

  • 1730December 27 – The Dutch East India Company ends an almost 11-year effort of trying to maintain a colony around Delagoa Bay in southern Africa in modern-day Mozambique. The entire population of the settlement, Fort Lydzammheid (near modern-day Maputo) is evacuated by the ships Snuffelaar, Zeepost and Feyenoord and the group returns to Cape Town.source
  • 1795September 15 – French Revolutionary Wars – Invasion of the Cape Colony: British forces capture Cape Town in the Dutch Cape Colony, to use its strategic facilities against the French Navy.source

19th century

  • 1806January 9 – The Dutch commandant of Cape Town surrenders to British forces. On January 10, formal capitulation is signed under the Treaty Tree in Papendorp (modern-day Woodstock).source
  • 1829October 1 – South African College is inaugurated in Cape Town.source
  • 1852February 25 – sinks near Cape Town, British Cape Colony. Only 193 of the 643 on board survive, after troops stand firm on the deck so as not to overwhelm the lifeboats containing women and children.source
  • 1899November 30 – The first women to serve, in uniform, in the armed forces of any nation begins service as part of the Canadian Militia Expeditionary Force to Cape Town to serve in the Boer War. Georgina Fane Pope and three other women are enlisted as army nurses.source

20th century

  • 1914July 18 – Mahatma Gandhi leaves South Africa for the last time, sailing out of Cape Town for England, on board the S.S. Kinfauns Castle.source
  • 1918May 14 – The Three Minute Pause, initiated by the daily firing of the Noon Gun on Signal Hill, is instituted by Cape Town Mayor Sir Harry Hands. It will inspire the introduction of the two-minute silence in November 1919.source
  • 1933July 8 – The first rugby union test match is played between the Wallabies of Australia and the Springboks of South Africa, at Newlands in Cape Town.source
  • 1938July 1 – The South African Press Association is established, with offices in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Bloemfontein and Pretoria.source
  • 1959July 9 – Wing Commander Michael Beetham flying a British Royal Air Force Vickers Valiant sets a record of 11 hours 27 minutes for a non-stop London-Cape Town flight.source
  • 1960February 3 – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Macmillan makes the Wind of Change speech to the South African Parliament in Cape Town (although he had first made the speech, to little publicity, in Accra, Gold Coast – modern-day Ghana – on January 10).source
  • 1967December 3 – Christiaan Barnard carries out the world's first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.source
  • 1990February 11 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years behind bars.source
  • 1996August 21 – Former State President of South Africa, F. W. de Klerk, makes an official apology for crimes committed under Apartheid to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Cape Town.source

21st century

  • 2014September 26 – The 2014 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, to be held in Cape Town from 13 to 15 October, is suspended after a boycott of Nobel Laureates to protest the third time refusal of a visa to the 14th Dalai Lama by a South African Government "kowtowing to China".source

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